Tuesday, September 8, 2009

#5 GAME REVIEW - WOW



World of Warcraft (WOW) is simply one of the best MMORPGs i have ever played. As i begin to write this last blog assignment, the past experiences of raiding, pvp, and even auctioning start to emerge from deep inside me. I had quitted WOW about 2 months back- July 26th 09, and it was a tough decision back then. You will not be able to see as much screen shots as the previous reviews as i cannot log into the game anymore but you can expect as much tips and reviews as i can recall.




Blizzard Entertainment is the company that brought us World of Warcraft, Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo franchises of gaming software. Blizzard had made WOW such a recognized game that receive many awards.


Let our journey begin

There are so much things i can share regarding WOW. The objective of this game mainly is to gear up your character while you achieve the maximum level of 80. Not to be boastful, personally i have 7 level 80 characters mainly 2 healers, 3 dpsers and 2 tanks (1 Druid,1 Shammy, 1 Warlock, 1 Hunter, 1 Rogue, 1 DeathKnight, 1 Warrior). DPS stands for damage per second.

Click here to see an armory of my warrior character.

The first objective of this game is to get yourself to level 80 as soon as possible so that you may enjoy raids and higher level instances (which is the main attraction of this game for pve players). If you prefer to kill the enemy, you may go to battleground and do PVP. PVE stands for players versus environment. PVP stands for players versus players.


The agony to grind from Level 1 to 80

Grinding process is always the main killing point for most MMORPGs. Most players do not have the patient or time and they might give up half way before reaching level 80. Furthermore, if they are in a pvp server, the opposition faction might slaughter them if they are in a neutral map. If they decide to camp your body, you will be expecting a tough time trying to escape them.


Death

When you die (HP become 0), you will leave your corpse at the location at where you die. If you decide to "release your spirit" from the corpse, you will turn into a spirit form (or ghost, Night elves - A wisp) and the spirit form spawns at the nearest graveyard. Then you must run back to your body to get resurrected. If you are lazy to run back, you might want to pay a penalty of 25% durability hit to your items to the spirit healer and get resurrected at the graveyard. At the same time, you will suffer resurrection sickness which decrease your attributes by 75% for a maximum of 10 minutes.


Choosing a character

There are 2 sides to choose from - The Horde and the Alliance. There are no clear proofs on which side is better but some says Horde are better for PVP. Each side has its unique race. Click on the 5 races from each sides below for details.

Horde- Trolls, Orcs, Tauren, Undead, Blood Elves
Alliance - Night Elves, Gnomes, Dwarves, Humans, Draenei




Choosing a troll

2 Sides, 10 Races and so what is next? You have the following 9 classes to choose from. I have written some review on which class will suit a player.

Rogue

Raid Leader: "DPS harder."
Traits: Stealth, backstab, surprise attack, stun, vanish

PVE: Rogue can dps pretty well without worry that his mana will run out when fighting a boss. Rogue rely on his energy to deal massive damage and it will repenish over time. If the boss suddenly cast a death threatening spell, he can rely his cloak of shadow and avoid death. If the raid leader call it a wipe, he can vanish to get out of combat, thus saving gold in repairing.

PVP: "What you cant see, you cant fight". Rogue tend enjoy first attack unless versus an area of effect (AOE) class such as a mage. During the pvp arena 2v2 mode, rogue's main job is to sap and disable a targetted class. After sapping an opponent, his team will focus attack on the other opponent. 99% during this time, the sapped opponent will use item such as Medallion of the Horde (epic), to dispel his sap. If the rogue reacts fast enough, he can blind him to disable him again.

During a 1v1 situation, it is possible to stun lock an opponent by using skills such as cheap shot, gouge, kidney shot, etc at the right interval. Click below to see how 10 rogue own WSG.




Warlock

Raid Leader: "Dots, dots, and more dots"
Traits: Pet with Unique name, soul link, many dot spell, life tap,drain life,fear

PVE: DOT means damage over time. If you are affliction spec, your shadow spell will be able to do a lot more damages than fire spell. In PVE, warlocks are very mana efficient as you can life tap to gain more mana

Some says destruction spec does more damage than affliction spec. This will depend on the duration of the boss fight. Destruction spec does more direct damage as opposed to affliction's dot. Furthermore, if destruction spec requries mana, they can life tap to sacrifice some health for mana. However this can be taxing for healers who need to watch out for this sudden drop in health.

PVP: Warlock can be pretty tricky to kill during pvp. Soul Link indirectly gives them extra HP as long as their pet is around. Furthermore, warlock can cast death coil which not only does direct damage but also cause the target to run in horror. Normally, death coil is follow up with the fear spell especially against melee attackers. As long as warlock keeps a distance between him and his target, he can range attack them and his felguard will do the close range combat.

Click here for some useful Macro for warlock

Hunter

Raid Leader: "Kite the star mob out of the room" .... "wtf, kite fail! Wipe it"
Traits: Faint death, traps, nameable pets (imwithnoob), concussive/aim shot, stings, aspect aura

PVE: Hunter tend to start the combat by doing threat redirection. In some instances/raids, hunter are required to kite mob by shooting at them to gain aggro while running away with aspect of the cheetah. They can use froze trap to slow some mobs and when their task is done, they just need to feign death and the boss will return to the raid group.

PVP: Hunter will try to keep a distance with the opponent. The fight is similiar with the warlock but hunter does not have fear spell. Hunter will need to rely on freeze trap to temporary immobilize the opponent while they move away and keep a maximum distance before dps again.

Click here to see a list of hunter tamable pets.


Mage



Raid Leader: "Sheep Star", "Make water/food for the raid"
Traits: Ice block, sheep/pig - a form of crowd control (cc), blink, invisibility, free refreshment

PVE: A very useful skill from a mage for raid/instance is ritual of refreshment and arcane brilliance. This is one of the most essential item for a raid group. In instances, mages are pretty good in cc through the use of polymorph. In some boss fight, mage become a support role for healers to help them decurse the raid group. After the raid, they can open portal for their raid group to travel back to the city instantly!!!

When mage ran out of mana during boss fight, no problemo. They can use the evocation spell to regain their mana.

PVP: Mage's aoe can break stealth of classes such as rogue and druid. When they face near death or being immobilized, they can ice block to save themself. Normally this is follow by froze nova, blink and a pyroblast to deal massive damage!


Paladin

Raid Leader: "Healadin, can you explain why you bubble hearth while fighting boss?","Tank All"
Traits: bubble hearth, plate healer, aura, blessing,Multi Purpose class

PVE: One of the class which can play as a tank, healer or dpser during raid. Commonly used because of his auras and blessing skill. Paladin used to be the best class for aoe tanking until the patch made warrior and druid able to do this as well.

PVP: When i play WOW, i really hate to fight pally (paladin for short). They have thick armor that most melee find it hard to kill them. Not only they can cause huge damage, they can use lay on hand spell to heal himself instantly. Even if this spell is on cooldown, they can cast divine shield and take their own sweet time to heal back to full health! See the below clip for paladin pvp fight.





Warrior

Raid Leader: "Tank all mobs","Do not charge pull the mobs"
Traits: Normally a raid leader or Main Tank, brave, charge, shield, taunt expert

PVE: Most raids tend to accept warrior tank rather than dps tank. Warrior can do extreme damage using execute skill when the target is at 20% health and below. But that is only if the warrior does not die in the first 80% fight. They can dual wield 2 X 2H weapon which makes them do a lot of damage during fight.

A geared warrior tank can last pretty long with a good healer around. With last stand, commanding Shout (which can boost his party members' health as well and shield wall, it is almost impossible for him to die if there are good healers healing him. He can gain good aggro using devastate, shockwave, vigilance, revenge and of course taunt.

PVP: Good for pvp due to his mortal strike skill. Charge and then hamstring or piercing howl his opponent to slow him down. Once the opponent is at 20% hp and blow, do an executing and the killing blow is as good as yours. If warrior face danger, he can use intimidating shout to fear them or retaliation to counter melee attacks.


Druid


Raid Leader: "More Hot, more hot"
Traits: A dire bear, a cat, a seal, a cute bear, a talking tree, a bird

PVE: Another similiar class with Paladin - can heal, tank or dps (3 in 1). I love being in tree or moonkin form. Commonly use for his mark of the wild buffing skill for the raid group. If i am out of mana during boss fight, i can innervate myself or my member. If my raid members are in danger, i can cast tranquility to save everyone.

PVP: Like a pally, a druid can be pretty hard to kill. He can HOT himself and turn into a bear which increases his hp and armor. Similiar with a rogue, he can stealth in cat form and give surprise attack. Druid can cyclone his opponent or use entangling root as a form of cc.




Priest
Raid Leader: "Res the dead"
Traits: shadow, levitate, prayer of fortitude,mass dispel, lightwell

PVE: Used to be only good for healing. Since burning crusade came out, priest has often been deployed as shadow dpser as well. Ability such as shackle undead, vampiric touch, power word:shield, mass dispel, and abolish disease can help the raid group to surivive longer and win the fight. If the priest is soulstoned and raid is wiped, they can get up and resurrect the raid members.


PVP: Although Priest wear cloth armor, they can survive pretty well with pain suppression. When facing danger, they just need to pychic scream to fear the enemy. Silence come in handy when versus a mana class enemy. There was once i remember while waiting for my raid members to arrive at naxx portal, one of the horde priest cast mind control on me and i fell 40 stories high to my death. Lucky for me the graveyard is nearby.


Shammy

Raid Leader: "Chain heal, chain heal","Ankh up"
Traits: Chain Heal, Chain Lightning, Ghost wolf, Caster Shield, Ankh

PVE: Also known as Shaman, Shammy rely on his totems to function fully. Shammy can also enhance his weapon for better healing or dpsing. During grinding period, he can use an extra hearth ability or ghost wolf to move across land faster. During Raid, Shammy has the ability to chain heal his raid members, thus heal saves 3 lives.

Raid leader would often call for Heroism (Alliance) or Bloodlust (Horde) to kill the boss faster. If the raid unfortunately get wipe, he can resurrect himself - often known as ankh up, and starts to resurrect the rest of his party members.

PVP: Other than his chain healing ability, Shammy can also dealt a lot of damage to multiple players at 1 time by using chain lightning. In WOTLK, Shammy can now do cc by hexing his opponent. If you prefer melee attack, you can even dual wield and do stormstrike to your opponent with the help of windfury weapon enchantment spell.


Death Knight

Raid Leader: "Can you stop aoe attack?"
Traits: Can appear as any race, diseases, free unique mount

PVE: Can play as a tanking or dps role. In order to be able to start a dk character, you must have a level 55 or higher character. Runeforging is a profession only available to death knights and it provide permanent weapon enchants. Unlike a rogue, DK gains its rune or "energy" by using his skills. One of my favourite skill Army of the dead, where you can summon a group of ghouls to taunt the boss or mobs in a 5 men instances.

PVP: If the target is trying to escape from you, just use Death Grip and pull him back to you. DK is very deadly in close combat with his death and decay skill and death strike skill. They are very useful in multiple mob attack. Chain of Ice can slow their enemy and strangulate can silence them. With plate armor, they are indeed one of the hard opponent you would want to face.

Click here to see how you can start a death knight.


Dual Talent Specialization

Now you have seen each class specification. Blizzard has made this game more fun and versatile by adding dual spec ability to each class. Each class is able to play 2 talent tree. Remember earlier on when i mention i have 7 80s character. Yes...i can play them in 14 different ways without respecting. For those class belong that can only DPS, you can make them PVP dpser or PVE dpser.

Rogue - DPS
Warlock - DPS
Hunter - DPS
Mage - DPS
Paladin - DPS / TANK / HEAL
Warrior -DPS / TANK
Druid - DPS / TANK / HEAL
Priest - DPS / HEAL
Shammy - DPS / HEAL
DK - DPS /TANK


10 GRINDING TIPS

How to grind from level 1 to level 80 in just 15 days? or about 5 hour game play time?

TIP 1 - Download helpful addons

I admit that my first character took the longest time to get to level 80. However as i start to grind other characters, i notice that i spend less time finding out where i should go during questing. Along the way, some expert share with me what is addon. There is an addon name QuestHelper that you need to download and this will vastly accelerate your leveling speed. Click here to visit the site of all available addons.

Downloaded QuestHelper already? You should see it at top 5 most downloaded addon tab. Deadly boss mods is very helpful when you attempting level 80 raids.

TIP 2 - Do quests

I notice some players dont really know how to do quests. Maybe this is because they did not download questhelper from the beginning. Or they just spend their time killing mobs without quests. The first thing they need to do is to gather all the quests at that area and do it together. Some quests can be completed in the same or nearby location.

Doing quests give you advantages such as exploring new place, gold reward, EXPERIENCES as well as the chain to next quest. You will notice that each mob has its colour coding when you scroll your mouse on them. Do not waste time doing Gray quests as the mob you kill give you no experience as well as reduce reward for completing them. Same goes with Red quests as the mobs are usually a skull or red colour to you and it is virtually impossible to kill them at a fast pace.

TIP 3 - Find Helper

While you are doing quests, you will notice that some quests are way difficult but gives you good rewards and experiences. Thus it is a advantage that you are nice to other human players around you and ask them for help. Just join as a party and those higher level players can help you kill the mobs and you can complete your quests. Remember to set it party mode and not raid mode or else you cannot complete your quests.

TIP 4 - Join a grinding guild

This grinding guild might not be your final raiding guild. It is just a guild where players are around your level and you can go questing together. If you get bored, you can form instance group with them.

TIP 5 - You do not need a profession until level 80

You can have 2 primary professions and 3 secondary profession. Although profession such as mining and herbing yield gold profits, you still need time to get it. The current patch is better as you just need to hit it once to get everything. Last time during mining, you need to keep mining to get all the mines for that particular node.

TIP 6 - You dont need gold to survive or buy items

At low level, there is no need for you to have lots of gold unless you are level 30 to buy a mount. I suggest you play a warlock or a pally as your first character as they are given free mount once they reach level 30.

At low level, there are some really nice high level players out there who does not mind lending a helping hand. I used to try this and it works. Just ask a high level with EPIC gear nicely "Can you spare me 1 gold to level up my skills?" Well, you can even try asking 2 gold or even 5. Sometime they just give you 10 gold out of pitiness (or friendship in a nicer term). Click below to see an advertisement on how to make fast gold.



TIP 7 - Buy a guide book

I wont really recommend spending more money as you already need to pay a subscription fee to play WOW. Click here if you want to explore some site selling guides.

TIP 8 - Pay people to level up for you.

Same as TIP 7, i wont recommend it either. There are people i know spend money for grinding services as they have work committment. Click here for a wow leveling site.

TIP 9 - Set your hearth at a main city

You can ask a mage to open a portal for you so that you can visit Shattract City or Dalaran. In these major city, there are portal to teleport you to other main cities. This can be tricky as most mage expect some gold in reward or else they would not even talk to you.

A faster mount will make your traveling quicker. In outland, you are able to buy your first flying mount. Click below to see a rare Netherdrake mount in action.



TIP 10 - Use websites and other resources

There are many good players out there who posted tips already. If you are stuck at a quest, you can visit http://thottbot.com/ and learn how to solve them.


Now i have shared the 10 tips of grinding. I hope you have a clearer picture on how to grind. Do0 take a look at the simple formulae of grinding below.

Speed of travel * time to complete quests * no opposition fraction intervention= the speed of leveling


Here is a bonus 11th TIP.


TIP 11- Rested Experience

Before you log out of the game, it is a good idea for you to hearth and park your character in an inn or a city. When you log back in the next day, you will notice that you gain more experience whenever you kill a mob. This is very useful if you cannot log in for a few days and thus encourage you to level this character when you are available.


Fun at LEVEL 80

Congrats on reaching level 80! You have just entered the beginning of this game. After the miserable grinding process, your next step is the gearing process. There are a certain epic gear which you would need in order to go into a decent raid group.

Instances / Dungeons

You can start by studying which instances (aka dungeons) give you the gear you need. Copy down to a piece of paper so that you would not forget. Make that into a check list. Heroic instances are harder but give you better gears. Click here to see all the instances by level.

Click below to see Heroic Hall of Lightning Loken fight.





Raid

When you are geared enough, you may attempt level 80 raid such as Naxxramas or a short raid Obsidian_Sanctum. If you are super geared, Ulduar will be your next challenge.

Click below to see a Ulduar bossXT -002 Deconstructor fight





PVP Raid

You may prefer to obtain pvp gear while there are not raid. Vault of Archavon (VOA) can be found in Wintergrasp map. This is a battle ground map where the fraction last won the battle defends Wintergrasp Keep, and the opposing fraction attacks the keep. Whoever win the battle will control the keep for about 2hr 30 mins and also able to enter VOA raid. Click below to see Emalon the Storm Watcher (VOA) fight.





Battleground

There are 6 types of battleground to choose from - Alterac Valley (AV), Arathi Basin (AB), Warsong Gulch (WSG), Eye of the Storm (EOS), Strand of the Ancients (SOA) and Isle of Conquest. You can always pug and go get some honor points in battleground. Click below to see some expert share with you how to win Arathi Basin.




Arena

You can form a team of 2,3 or 5 and attempt to win arena. You can gain arena points which can be used to purchase Arena pvp gear. Click below to see a warrior and druid combination for arena.



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I hope you enjoy the blog review so far. There are still a lot of information you can research about this game online. Click here for free 10 days WOW trial.


Good:
---------
.
  • Many quests for us to do and level up to 80
  • Many high end instances and raids.
  • Can download addons to help in questing or pvp or raiding or getting resources.
  • Sense of achievement - Down bosses with a raid guild / obtain epic gears set.
  • Playing with people around the world
  • You can send items to your alt and receive immediately
  • Auction your items to gain money
  • Many PVP battleground
  • GM will retrieve your items if you are hacked

Bad:
---------
.
  • Have to spend time leveling up from 1 to 80
  • Might not be easy to play for beginners.
  • People might not accept you for raid if you are under geared.
  • Weekly Tuesday maintenance
  • Random drop in gear in instances or raid -have to spend time getting them.


*****************************************************

In Summary
(None, Bad, poor, average, good, excellent)

Graphic: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Storyline: Excellent
Animation: Excellent
User Control: Excellent
Entertainment level: Excellent


References:

1. http://www.wowwiki.com
2. http://www.blizzard.com
3. http://thottbot.com/
4. http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/default.aspx
5. http://www.wow-loot.com/
6. http://www.wowarmory.com
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